“The reason you haven’t felt it is because it doesn’t exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons. You’re born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I’m living like there’s no tomorrow, because there isn’t one.”
Don Draper

Why do we love Mad Men? because it is simple and emotionally complex at the same time. Because it looks amazing. Because of the hats. Because the characters smoke and drink at the office all day, because of Joan and Betty and because it is cool, very cool.
Mad Men has no big ‘dramatic’ conflicts where characters die and cry on every episode but the drama is rather internal. Mad Men is what some critics call “a slow-burn”, an introspective trip 4 generations ago.
I’ve always wondered why Mad Men looked so good. A combination of superb cinematography, art directing and costume design. I recently discovered the video above. Do you want to learn about cinematography? watch it!
Enjoy!
G

Directed by Hungarian first time director Gyorgy Palfi, Hukkle is a daring, unusual and refreshingly original film. A crime mystery film where the mystery is not the crime but life itself. Life and its circularity. A tale about the natural cycle of birth and death.
An old woman sells poison in tiny bottles which cause the death of one of the villagers. A local policeman investigates this murder. He’s the son of the village bee-keeper. The bees pollinate the farms which contain the wheat that the families eat and the old woman uses to make her venom.
There’s no plot as such but a lot of different themes woven together through the most original cuts. In fact, it feels as if the director is presenting you with lots of different elements so you can put them together and make whatever you want out of them, just like life itself.

The final result is a beautiful film, full of carefully crafted compositions which flow one into another with astonishing fluency.
Ooops, and it’s dialogue-free. Chapeau!
G

Heima chronicles Sigur Ros free tour around Iceland in 2006. I watched ‘Heima’ on the big screen at Sheffield Docfest 2007 and I couldn’t stop talking about it for months. Every frame is achingly beautiful and Sigur Ros music adds that surreal touch that makes this film different to any other music film that you’ve ever seen.

If you enjoy Sigur Ros, top notch cinematography and natural beauty, you can’t be wrong. Heima.

G

Beatbox – Felix Zenger

I saw this video around two years ago while browsing through film making message boards and I inmediately liked it. I think is simple in its concept but terribly effective. And let’s face it, 90% of the time, simplicity is best! It’s shot with the same cameras that we use at viva la zoom! , the Canon XHA1 and I always thought that they had made a very good use of its versatility. Well done!

G

On a recent trip to Western America, I visited the MOMA in San Francisco and I discovered the photographer (and later Film Maker) Robert Frank for the very first time. His master piece The Americans was on display. The 50 odd photographs were taken during three different trips around the US in the 50’s.
It’s quite hard to describe the feelings that you get from exposing yourself to these images. Maybe, what stroke me the most about them was the feeling of being in front of a very big picture rather than tens of them.
In fact, the Americans feels more like a film, one where you can see each frame and each one tells you a different story.

Never a country had been depicted so truthfully as America under the lenses of Robert Frank .

A couple of links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frank

The Americans

G

Wow, great video. We hope the films at the festival are as good as the promo.

Guille